A Dél-Afrikai arany bányákban dolgozó embereket "Stimela Train" szállította. Rendkívül embertelen körülmények között dolgoztak napi 16 órákat, munkaszállásokban laktak. Sokuk megsebesült, legyengült, elvesztette végtagját. Sajátos nyelven kommunikáltak egymással 700 méter mélyen.
Gumboot dancers are commonly sighted on the streets and plazas of tourist areas in South Africa. It is still used today by some miners. The dance likely originated among their tough working conditions ( obscurity , dampness, ...). Many of the steps and routines are parodies of the officers and guards who controlled the mines and workers' barracks. Like other forms of African dance, Gumboot utilizes the concepts of polyrhythm and total body articulation, drawing from the cultural dances of the African workers that manned the mines.


"There is a train," he says, "that comes from Mozambique, Angola, Zimbabwe, from Malawi, Botswana, Namibia, Lesotho, Swaziland and the whole hinterland of South Africa. This train carries young and old African men to work in the mines of Johannesburg. Deep, deep, deep down in the belly of the earth, they dig and drill for that shiny, mighty, evasive stone. And when they hear that choo-choo train, they curse the coal train that brought them to Johannesburg."



Yet still Masekela's voice persisted; "Stimela," he shouted, and the haunting song sent my thoughts back to the history of the railways in the Witwatersrand, and the stories of loss and displacement as locomotives separated millions of mineworkers from their homes and families.

This sentiment is captured in another more popular song that some regard as South Africa's "second national anthem." Shosholoza belies its joyful energy as it tells of the trains that carried men across distant lands and over mountains to work in the mines of South Africa.
ezt a dalt énekeljük a kórusban... a Masekela számot pedig ma mutatta nekünk Garba óra előtt, pihenés képpen. Fantasztikus, amikor egy művészeti alkotás mögött van történelem, amikor valami igazán erőteljes dolog ihleti. Csodálattal hallgattam. és mondanom sem kell, a legjobban az afrikai dalokat szeretem a kórusban énekelni. néha jó lenne egy afrikai is közénk, az lenne az igazi...